Pursue Your Passion, Do What You Love, Follow Your Bliss, etc.
I am a big fan of the idea of “pursuing your passion” or “doing what you love” or “following your bliss”. After all, life is too precious a gift to waste it on something that doesn’t matter to you. While I fully agree with the need to find and do what you love, I’ve been burned and left a little stuck by a more aggressive approach to jumping on this path.
Risky, risky
The more aggressive approach, at its most extreme, looks like quitting your day job and pouring all of your resources into doing your own thing. For some that’s really exciting and for others terrifying. Regardless of your relationship to risk, I believe that just jumping ship is not the best course of action. I’d like to make a case for why you shouldn’t quit your job… yet.
Two Types of People
You are one of two types of people. The first knows what they want to do, knows what they love, and are willing to make sacrifices in order to pursue that thing. The second isn’t quite sure what they love, maybe they enjoy many different things, but they haven’t quite decided yet what it is they want to do. If you’re one of those who enjoys many different things, I want to make the point here that you don’t just have to chose one passion and that’s all you will do for the rest of your life, but you do need to choose one passion to start with and build upon. In either case, whether you know what you want to do, or you haven’t quite figured it out, it is very discouraging and potentially detrimental to your passion to put the financial pressure on its success or failure before it is ready and able to support you.
The Fear of Your Passion Becoming a J O B
Many artist are afraid of charging money or turning what they do into a business, because they are afraid it’s going to start to feel like a job. I believe the real reason is that their passion is not in a position yet to truly support them. In this case, keeping your day job and paying your bills while you build your passion on the side ensures that you keep the financial pressure off of the passion so that it can thrive.
The Danger of Compromise
Another thing that happens when one jumps into their passion to soon is that they are more willing, or maybe even feel that they must, compromise on their values and process in order to make ends meet. This is where pursuing your passion really can feel like a job. When your finances depend on you taking every job that comes your way, you open yourself up to clients that you should not take on, but feel you must because of the deficit in your budget. What if you only did work that you love? What if you only worked with clients who understood your value and were willing to follow your process and compensate your fairly for your work? What if you could refuse to work with clients who you could determine would not be a good fit for you? You are more free to operate this way when your passion is not distressed by the need to make ends meet.
Being in the Position of Strength
There are a lot of people who say that when you start out, you should take whatever work you can get. If you have a day job that is meeting your financial needs, it puts you in the position of strength. You can literally afford to walk away from a bad client. This doesn’t have to result in less work either. In addition to the good clients you may potentially take on, you can work on self-initiated projects, or do free work for clients as a way of building a strong portfolio and putting out regular work.
Leave Room for Discovery
Back on the two types of people… if you are someone who knows what they want to do, building it on the side is a great way to discover whether it truly is something that you love, or that it was just something you liked the idea of doing. Maybe when you really get into it, you’ll find that you don’t really want to do it at all. Maybe you’ll discover that you want to do something “a few degrees” to the right or left. In any case, this process of discovery is best played out in the context of having your financial needs met by something else. If you are like me and you have trouble zeroing in on what you want to do, the process is similar… you’ve got to pick something and dig deeper into it before you determine whether or not it’s something you want to make your primary pursuit, and unless this process is free from the stress of finances, it can cause you to try to rush through the process to quickly or even cause you to feel stuck, not sure of which direction to go.
Have an Exit Plan
Have an exit plan. The point is not to keep a day job indefinitely so that you never put the financial responsibility on your passion, but your goal is to grow your passion to the point where it can support you financially. Make projections about where you will be in 3 months, in 6 months, in a year. Set some goals and see how they play out. Over time you will be able to get a sense for what it will take for you to be able to quit your day job. I find that just knowing there is an end in sight, understanding the role my day job plays in helping me protect and grow my passion, helps me to view my day job with a better perspective.
Why You SHOULD Quit
There are a few circumstances under which I would recommend quitting. You should quit your day job if your job leaves you no time to do what you love. You should quit if your day job environment is so stressful that it is emotionally draining or leaves you little energy for creative work. If you quit your day job for any of these reasons, you should be on the look out for something that will do a better job of meeting your needs while leaving you the time and energy to build what you love. That could also be a good reason to quit your day job, that you’ve found another day job that covers your expenses and allows you more time. Finally, you should quit when you’re passion is ready to support you. These are good reasons to quit.
A Job is a Tool
My encouragement for you is that you not look at your day job as your livelihood. Life is about much more than just taking care of one’s expenses. What is truly life giving for you and your family is having your needs met AND being able to share what you love to do with the world. A day job is no more than a useful tool that you can use strategically to build your passion.